Frontend Architecture
React & Next.js Engineering
React and Next.js engineering for product teams who need a frontend that is fast, indexable, and maintainable. App Router, SSR and ISR, performance, SEO, accessibility, and architecture decisions that age well.
What's Included
Comprehensive solutions tailored to your specific needs
Next.js App Router
Server components, streaming, server actions, Edge runtime where it makes sense — built right, not Stack Overflow right.
Server-side rendering & ISR
SSR for dynamic content, ISR for content that updates predictably, SSG for pure marketing routes.
Frontend SEO engineering
Server-rendered meta, canonical handling, structured data, Open Graph, hreflang, and clean URL strategy.
Performance & bundle budgets
CI-enforced route budgets, code splitting, image and font strategy, and quarterly bundle reviews.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.2 AA-conformant components with keyboard navigation, screen reader semantics, and Axe in CI.
Design system & components
Tailwind + shadcn/ui or your existing design system, with a styleguide and Storybook where the team will use it.
Problems I Solve
Symptoms this engagement is built to fix
A Next.js App Router rewrite that shipped slower than the Pages Router version it replaced.
Client components everywhere because the team has not internalised the server-component model.
Marketing pages built in React that Google indexes empty because meta and content render client-side.
A SPA that should never have been a SPA — five marketing routes shipping 400KB of JavaScript.
Bundle size that grows every sprint because nobody owns the budget and no CI gate enforces it.
A frontend that works perfectly on the team's MacBooks and dies on a mid-tier Android phone.
Why most React projects end up regretting their architecture
React makes it easy to ship something that works on day one and difficult to ship something that ages well. The default path — Create React App, useState everywhere, fetch in useEffect, no SSR, no code splitting — produces a SPA that is invisible to search engines, slow on mid-tier phones, and a constant source of bundle-size regression. My engagements start from a different premise: React is a rendering library, not a deployment strategy. Most product surfaces should be server-rendered or statically generated, hydrated only where interactivity is needed, with strict bundle budgets and a clear ownership model for the architecture. That is the difference between a frontend you grow into and one you replace in eighteen months.
Next.js App Router, server components, and the decisions that matter
Next.js 14+ with the App Router and React Server Components is the strongest production frontend stack in 2025, but it punishes teams that have not internalised the new mental model. Server components are the default; client components are an opt-in via the use client directive; data fetching happens at the server boundary; streaming and suspense replace most of what useEffect used to do. Teams that mark every component as client lose all the benefit and ship more JavaScript than they did on the Pages Router. My engagements train the team on the new boundary, refactor the most-loaded routes to a sensible server/client split, and put guard rails in place: ESLint rules against unnecessary use client, bundle analysis in CI, and architectural decision records for the patterns that will recur.
SEO and React: the failure modes nobody talks about until launch
Most React frontends that fail SEO fail it in three specific ways. First, meta tags set in useEffect render after the initial HTML, so social-preview crawlers and the snapshot Google indexes for soft-fetched pages get nothing. Second, content rendered client-side from an API call appears empty in view-source, and while Google's renderer can usually execute it, the queue delay can be days for low-authority pages. Third, hydration mismatches cause silent failures that leave half the page invisible. The fixes are not exotic — render meta and primary content server-side, use Next.js metadata or React Helmet correctly, avoid hydration patterns that conditionally render based on window or localStorage on the first paint. I bake these in at the template layer, not as a remediation project six months later.
Performance, bundle budgets, and the discipline most teams skip
Bundle size grows by default. Every sprint someone adds a tooltip library, a date picker, a CSV import that pulls in 80KB of Papa Parse, a chart component that ships D3 to render a sparkline. Without ownership and enforcement, the budget you launched with quietly doubles within a year. My engagements ship with @next/bundle-analyzer in CI, route-level size budgets gated by the build, eslint-plugin-budget-conscious rules, and a quarterly bundle review baked into the team's process. Beyond bundle size, the work covers proper code splitting, route-level lazy loading, image optimisation via next/image or equivalent, font loading without FOIT/FOUT, and a hard look at any third-party React library that has a lighter alternative.
When React is not the answer, and the alternatives I will recommend
React is rarely the wrong call for a complex product surface. It is often the wrong call for a five-page marketing site, a documentation portal, or an editorially-led publication. For those, Astro with islands of interactivity ships dramatically less JavaScript, indexes cleanly, and is genuinely faster to build in. For documentation, Starlight or Nextra are usually better than rolling a React site. For pure marketing pages, Eleventy or a well-built WordPress block theme will beat React on every metric that matters. Part of senior engineering is telling clients honestly when the popular tool is not the right one — and I will tell you that when it applies.
What You Receive
Deliverables & expected outcomes
- Production-ready Next.js or React application
- Server/client component architecture with documented patterns
- SEO and performance budgets enforced in CI
- Design system or shadcn/ui-based component library
- Accessibility baseline at WCAG 2.2 AA
- Deployment pipeline (Vercel, Netlify, self-hosted, or your platform)
Illustrative Engagement
A representative scenario
The problem
A SaaS marketing site rebuilt in Next.js 14 had a slower LCP than the WordPress site it replaced, organic traffic had dropped 28 percent post-launch, and the bundle had grown to 480KB on the homepage.
The approach
Audit revealed the entire route tree was marked use client out of caution. We refactored to server components by default, moved meta and content rendering to the server, added a CI budget, and removed two heavy client libraries that had been imported by example code.
The outcome
Homepage bundle fell to 89KB, LCP from 3.4s to 1.4s, and organic traffic recovered fully within ten weeks while gaining roughly 12 percent on the original baseline.
Composite scenario based on typical engagements. Replace with a real, attributed case study once published.
My Process
A proven methodology for delivering exceptional results
Architecture brief
Goals, constraints, content model, server/client boundary, deployment target, and a written architecture decision record.
Foundation
Project skeleton, design system, CI/CD, performance and accessibility budgets, and the cross-cutting patterns that everything else depends on.
Iterative delivery
Sprints with shippable increments, demo at end of each sprint, and a working application from sprint one.
Launch & guard rails
Production deploy, post-launch monitoring, team training on the patterns, and optional ongoing engineering retainer.
Why Choose Me?
With 7+ years of experience and a track record of delivering results, I bring expertise, reliability, and a results-driven approach to every project.
- Frontend architecture that ages well — not Stack Overflow expediency
- SEO baked in at the template layer, not retro-fitted
- CI budgets that protect bundle size long-term
- Honest recommendations when React is not the right call
- Accessibility taken seriously, not as a launch-day spreadsheet
- Senior engineer delivering directly — no junior handoff
Starting at
€1,497
Production React or Next.js engineering with SEO, performance, and accessibility engineered in. Greenfield builds, rescues, and ongoing retainers.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Further Reading
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